November 08, 2007

PeconicPuffin.com Is One Year Old. Blah Blah Blah...

Not the Peconic Puffin, though. The Peconic Puffin is fourteen ("fourteen and a half!" says Avery.) Version One was a weekly three page newsletter (a few details can be found in the about section of the blog) that I'd do from May to October of each year (the months we had our weekend share house on the Little Peconic Bay.)

To amuse myself, as well as those first-generation Puffins who still poke around and anyone with too much time on their hands, I'm including the original Peconic Puffin (click on the images to read) from May of 1993.

Cast of characters:

Ann and Tony are the landlords, living next door (sometimes Ann made us muffins.)
Alvin is a chipmunk
Pinky is a six-toed cat, and a local legend.
Dave, Gabriella, Jay, Karen, Cindy, Steve, Mark and I shared the Puffin House.
John at Sail Action is the nascent proprietor of Windsurfing Hamptons.

These, along with a collection of people who appear in subsequent issues--neighbors Bob, Nancy, Eileen and Steve, Slo and Ivette, Sally the girlfriend (now my wife of ten years) and a polite teenager named Jace Panebianco who worked for Jon Ford--were the original Puffins. (Steve and Cindy's girls Jordan and Avery, as well as Slo and Ivette's Eugene were born as Puffins, but that's for another time.)

Anyhow that was then. About fifteen people read the thing, and it was about those fifteen or so people.

The blog is still about windsurfing and the people I sail with, along with whatever else comes to mind. Over a thousand people read it, almost all of whom I don't know. Every once in awhile someone walks up to me and says "Are you the puffin?" (It's almost always somebody recognizing my gear or the van. And it always shocks me.) I've met lots of windsurfers on Long Island (most of whom are better sailors than I) through the thing. And I have friends I've never met from Malta, Australia and the UK to the Bay Area and Brooklyn (I got to meet OBX Bill a few weeks ago...that was cool, and totally not digital.) More windsurfing friends=good.

Comments

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Fun Reading about the vintage sailing gear in the 93 Puffin. I too bought a quiver of single cam "convertable" sails convinced that RAF's were a thing of the past. Day glow colors ruled; If you didn't have a brightly colored wetsuit, you weren't a serious windsurfer. I sadly threw mine out several years back. However, this past weekend I managed to salvage an old pair of Windsurfing Hawaii harness lines (flouresecent pink!)from a boom I sent to the recycling bin. The lines are actually in great shape with little wear. I think I'm going to put them on one of my newer booms and see who comments on them this weekend. Anyway, I really enjoy your blog-site. Have a good sail this weekend!
Rob